Obama’s new plan to cut emissions includes turning cow dung into green energy

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To cut down on greenhouse gases, the US needs to start canning the crap.

In a speech on March 28, president Barack Obama announced the National Biogas Roadmap, part of a broader Climate Action Plan that the president debuted last June. The key part of the biogas roadmap is to help slaughterhouses, dairies, and ranches to install biogas digesters—systems that use anaerobic (non-oxygen breathing) bacteria to break down organic waste (video).

As they eat, the bacteria purge the waste of toxins that would otherwise seep into groundwater, and as a by-product, they burp up methane. The system captures that methane, which is clean-burning. It can be used on-site as natural gas, or pumped into generators to convert it into electricity. That also means the dung doesn’t lie around releasing methane—a greenhouse gas far more potent, albeit shorter-lived, than carbon dioxide—into the air.

The program’s goal is to cut methane emissions from dairy producers by one-quarter by 2020, but environmentalists doubt it will happen voluntarily. “Clean energy, value-added manure, jobs, it all sounds good,” Thomas Hertel, who researches climate and agriculture at Purdue University in Indiana, told the Wall Street Journal. “But reducing gas emissions by 25% by 2020 seems like it will require more than letting the industry know there’s an opportunity out there.” Hertel didn’t offer any suggestions about new regulations.

Still, even the 20% drop that the White House’s biogas roadmap could produce is better than nothing, and the capture of clean-burning methane to use as fuel helps by reducing other carbon emissions. It’s estimated that a busy biogas plant, like the ones that meat processor Cargill uses at three of its US slaughterhouses, produce enough methane to power 3,000 houses a year.

Until the final biogas road map comes out later this summer, there’s no telling how many of these potential sites will be developed, let alone how much energy they’ll produce. However, with the industry producing 40 million tons (36 million tonnes) of beef and 21 billion gallons (95 billion liters) of milk every year, America’s cows have got plenty of fuel for those who want it.